Surface tension of multi-phase flow with multiple junctions governed by the variational principle
Provides a unified variational framework for multi-phase fluid dynamics with multiple junctions, enabling accurate modeling of surface tension effects at singularities.
The authors reformulate surface tension for multi-phase flows with multiple junctions using a variational principle, deriving a novel Euler equation that handles singularities at junctions. Numerical tests on contact angles at triple junctions validate the approach.
We explore a computational model of an incompressible fluid with a multi-phase field in three-dimensional Euclidean space. By investigating an incompressible fluid with a two-phase field geometrically, we reformulate the expression of the surface tension for the two-phase field found by Lafaurie, Nardone, Scardovelli, Zaleski and Zanetti (J. Comp. Phys. \vol{113} \yr{1994} \pages{134-147}) as a variational problem related to an infinite dimensional Lie group, the volume-preserving diffeomorphism. The variational principle to the action integral with the surface energy reproduces their Euler equation of the two-phase field with the surface tension. Since the surface energy of multiple interfaces even with singularities is not difficult to be evaluated in general and the variational formulation works for every action integral, the new formulation enables us to extend their expression to that of a multi-phase ($N$-phase, $N\ge2$) flow and to obtain a novel Euler equation with the surface tension of the multi-phase field. The obtained Euler equation governs the equation of motion of the multi-phase field with different surface tension coefficients without any difficulties for the singularities at multiple junctions. In other words, we unify the theory of multi-phase fields which express low dimensional interface geometry and the theory of the incompressible fluid dynamics on the infinite dimensional geometry as a variational problem. We apply the equation to the contact angle problems at triple junctions. We computed the fluid dynamics for a two-phase field with a wall numerically and show the numerical computational results that for given surface tension coefficients, the contact angles are generated by the surface tension as results of balances of the kinematic energy and the surface energy.